Research Finished? Not so fast Rod!

I was chugging right along. Text flowing from my fingertips like ink from a giant squid....which I do bear an uncanny resemblance to when the sun hits me just right. Anyway, I was getting a lot written when I got one of my brain surges. Merry had been talking about her sister and brother-in-law that live in Levan, UT. Levan and the area around Levan do figure prominently in my novel, so I got the idea to use Don Tippets, Sue, and their kids in the book. Only family, and you, will know the Tippets aren't the names of real settlers pulled from geneology or from some pioneer journal. Of course, I am going to have fun with giving them pioneer characteristics and jobs. Some of the tags I give them will be true to their real characteristics, while others will be whimsical, wishful, or just plain funny. The casual reader won't have the slightest idea it's going on, but it will be good for a laugh for several family reunions and get a lot of play on our facebook accounts. I am going attempt to include friends and relatives and probably not even tell them about it. It's one way of finding out who REALLY reads the book?

Back to the heading of this post. When I started including Don's family, I felt I needed to learn more about the history of Levan. That was two days ago. Now, I have more history of the area around Levan than I could ever use. Tonight I WILL write in the Tippets crew and be able to move on. It's going to be fun. I think his son Kenneth will be the sheriff, Wendy will be at home helping her mother due to Sue's health problems, Kevin will be in the militia, Karen will be a struggling widow with two kids that can't stay out of trouble, and Sherman might be a local veterinarian. I swear, Sherman could wrestle a horse to the ground if the need arose. Don's wife Sue will be a loving and supportive mother and wife, and the glue that holds the family together.

I found out about an obscure artifact that is still in the hills outside of Levan, south of Chicken Creek. It's a brick retort someone used to "cook" oil out of the native shale. The distilled shale oil was used as harness oil and lantern fuel. The pioneer that operated the still garnered a barrel a day from the operation. Don will be that guy in my book.

Wednesday evening I was playing basketball and fell, opening up a gash under my eyebrow that required 7 perty little stitches and treated me to a minor concussion. I'm going to have one of the Gibson boys receive that same injury when he won't leave them alone and gets pushed to the ground by his sister's boyfriend...kid gets a gash in his head on a rock in the road, dad gets mad, boy apologizes to dad, boy apologizes to the kid, boy apologizes to girl on a dark front porch, bf tries to kiss girl, little boy gets in the way again...you get the picture.